By Bob Allen
Strip clubs, run-down neighborhoods and a Sikh temple were among landmarks on a recent “lostness” bus tour of Louisville, Ky., sponsored by Kentucky Baptists.
EngageKY, a Kentucky Baptist Convention program to build awareness about needs for church planting and revitalization in selected cities across the commonwealth, kicked off Sept. 11-12. After dinner and panel discussions at the Kentucky Baptist Building, participants boarded buses to tour a community described as more pluralistic and less churched than the one remembered by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary alumni from decades ago.
Todd Robertson, elder and lead planter of Antioch Church in south Louisville, said with about 160 Southern Baptist churches and missions in Long Run Baptist Association, a casual observer might assume the metropolitan area is “covered” in terms of missionary need.
“That might be something to look at and say, ‘Well there’s no real need there,’” Robertson said. “Can I be honest with you?… Of those 160 churches and missions, the overwhelming majority of them are on a plateau or are dying. That’s just reality.”
Robertson cited statistics showing that more than half of people living in the area report either no religious affiliation or identify with a religion other than Christianity. Digging deeper into patterns of church attendance, he extrapolated that an estimated 85 percent to 90 percent of the metro Louisville population is “without a personal relationship with Christ.”
“This is a lost place,” Robertson said. “We have hundreds of thousands of our neighbors who are dying and going to hell, who have no connection with any group or are in groups that are lying to them and telling them they are going to get to heaven in another way other than Jesus Christ.”
Robertson said The Pluralism Project at Harvard University lists 12 mosques or religious education centers for Islam, six locations for Judaism, six for Buddhism, two for Hinduism and one each for Baha’i, Jainism and Sikhs.
On top of that, he said, there are eight different locations or organized groups for atheists and humanists, four for pagans and three for Unitarian Universalists, “who basically don’t believe anything yet believe everything.”
“There may have been a day when Southern Baptists ruled the day,” Robertson said. “There may have been a day even when Catholics thought they had the corner on the market in Louisville. That’s not today.
“It’s a city that’s lost. It’s a city that’s deceived. It’s a city that is flooded with new religious groups that are taking a strong foothold.”